'Tess of the D’Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy

First published by James R. Osgood between July and November, 1891

Buy Link: https://www.waterstones.com/book/tess-of-the-durbervilles/thomas-hardy/tim-dolin/9780141439594

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32261.Tess_of_the_D_Urbervilles

Author Link: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hardy

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet best known for writing ‘Jude the Obscure’ and ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’

“When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.”

FTC disclaimer: I was not sent this product. I am not affiliated with the companies mentioned. All opinions are my own.

Rating: 4 out of 10

This book is a tragedy. Both in its genre and in the fact that its potential was dashed. I hated how I did not believe that a happy ending would be possible or likely at all. In my opinion, a crucial element to the tragic style is the author’s ability to make the reader believe that there is still hope all the way till the end of the novel (which Hardy didn’t). Without doing this, the endings often fail to be impactful, as they are expected. Hardy contrastingly even made a point about the fact that Tess was cursed in a way, destined to have a painful life because of the wrongdoings of her noble ancestors. He also makes a big effort to emphasise her poverty and good looks, two traits that do not make for a happy ending. So I felt that as a reader I was just following her slow demise, slow being the key word here. If we imagine that this novel took be 10 hours to read, I could confidently say that only about 30 minutes of that time was really exciting or unexpected for me. Hardy takes such a long time to build up the circumstances he needs for the tragic ending, and the build-up was not gripping.

The setting felt very real due to lengthy and sometimes overly detailed descriptions, but I liked how the place names were fabricated. Additionally, the setting did link to the plot extremely well, as we can see in other nineteenth century novels such as ‘Jane Eyre’. Each setting was delved into for a reason, which I respected.

The events, unfortunately, were really quite predictable (excluding the climactic ending). After Tess visited Alec (and we had the strawberry incident), it was obvious that there would be a romance between the two, but he wasn’t described as attractive or likeable, so we knew it would end badly. And then for the whole of Tess’ romance with Angel, we were just waiting for her to tell him the truth. So instead of forward motion, we had a narrator type voice (not Tess herself) who would reflect on her woes, and who was basically Hardy’s way of shoehorning his own opinions into the novel (about the downfalls of Victorian society.)

The plot was very description based, with little dialogue, which I didn’t love. On the other hand, I did enjoy how all the main characters were introduced far before we became aware of their significance. So for example, the man in the pub who insults Tess later turns out to be the farmer at Flintcomb-Ash. That was quite satisfying as I have seen it less often in works of Commercial fiction.

I did not enjoy the characters. Alec D’Urberville was the most riveting to read, even though he is the most morally corrupted. Tess was a bit of a doormat in her actions, and there were so many instances where she’d psych herself up to do something and then not do it at the last minute (such as when she is planning to ask Angel’s family for money). Although this can be an effective method of creating suspense, when it is used to the extent and multitude that it is in this novel, it loses its effectiveness and simply becomes an irritation to the reader. I didn’t even dislike her because she was weak, as she was self-sufficient. She was young and passionate, but her frustrating choices did not reflect this and simply made me dislike her. Hardy and Tess just whined about how life wasn’t fair throughout the whole novel, and Tess never stood up for herself which was extremely tiresome.

Tess was in love with Angel Clare, a man with no personality and no interesting character traits except that he wasn’t really religious, and that he was a massive hypocrite. He only loved her because he thinks she is beautiful and pure, but I like the way that Hardy never hid his flaws. Her obsession with him is never really explained, except that she admires him greatly for his unique views on religion, and his intelligence.

Finally, Alec D’Urberville: he assaults and seduces Tess (and potentially rapes her -but it isn’t particularly clear), and is so fanatically obsessed with his simultaneous love and hatred for her that he becomes the most interesting read. He knows what he wants and tries to get it. He is disgusting in many ways, but I’d rather a confrontational character than a spineless one. The only closure I felt that the reader got in the end for Tess’ weakness was how Tess stabbed D’Urberville; an unleashing of all her pent up frustration about how the men in her life had ruined her life, and it made me forgive her a little bit for not having any love for herself. So the ending was my favourite part, and basically prevented me from giving this book a much lower rating.

I have actually already read Hardy before, and I must say that I did prefer this novel to ‘Jude the Obscure’. I can understand and appreciate why this book has become a classic; it was so divisive for its time. If the events of this novel happened today, the problems would be non-existent because marriage and sex are not so rigidly controlled, making it all the more infuriating to read. On the other hand, I cannot brush past the fact that between starting and finishing this book, I read 3 other books. There is a reason for that. I’m not sure I’d recommend this book to anyone, though it did give me a lot of food for thought. I think that the book could have been improved by contrasting all of the depressing action with some silver linings, “hope”, as I said before. Something warm to make a reader want to revisit it. Also, let’s be honest it was just too long. In summary, I appreciated what Hardy was trying to do with this novel and all of its little intricacies, but I didn’t enjoy reading it.

Interesting quotations:

· “the natural shyness of the softer sex”

“His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative”

“the greatest misfortune of her life was this feminine loss of courage at the last and critical moment”

- I thought this was a feminist novel!

· “Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself.” - basically summarises the plot

· “In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving.”

- a novel of poor timing

· “Was once lost always lost really true of chastity?” - yay equality

· “She was yawning, and he saw the red interior of her mouth as if it had been a snake’s.”

“She bent forwards at which each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad’s;” - snazzy descriptions I actually loved

· “The firmness of her devotion to him was indeed almost pitiful;” - yup